Obama wins, Whiners win and lose, Full Tilt Poker is back

Perhaps you were visiting friends in Antarctica or stuck in a pesky coma if you missed the U.S. Presidential election this week. Incumbent Barack Obama easily handled GOP contender Mitt Romney after every politician across the board dumped a ton of money to blast my swing-state airwaves with constant ads. The jury is still out on how this will impact the future of online poker in the States, but I think they’ll have a few more important things to handle at the moment.

In far less exciting news, Brandon Cantu defeated Jon Aguiar in a replay of the controversial Mix-Max WSOP Europe heads up match. To refresh your memory, Cantu whined like a newborn after Aguiar beat him for the bracelet in September because of Main Event scheduling issues and then managed to stand in for an insta-classic PokerNews interview (linked at the bottom of this post).

While no stranger to acting a fool when it pleases him, Aguiar offered to play heads up after Cantu wouldn’t let up on the subject. They played for the difference between 1st and 2nd, but not for the bracelet, at Aria, where Cantu somehow feels vindicated after winning the match and ~$135,000. Lose/lose.

Never a dull moment across the Atlantic at the World Series of Poker Europe, this time it was a bizarre ending to the €10,450 Mixed Max Event following a perfect storm of silliness. The tournament began it’s final heads up matches two days ago but was forced to pause the action when Brandon Cantu complained his way through a 9 hour match and then the final between Cantu and Jon Aguiar was paused because the casino was closing. I thought last call in a casino was silly, but closing it all down?

The match had to wait while both players were in the Main Event but both were knocked out on Day 1. Aguiar finally put this one to bed with his first career WSOP bracelet but there is no truth to the rumor he blamed Joe Sebok for the delayed victory. Cantu stayed true to form and spent several spastic minutes in front of the PokerNews video camera (video below).

PokerCast Episode 239 – Howard Lederer – TwoPlusTwo has a followup podcast with Lederer after his 7 hour PokerNews marathon. I haven’t had the time, or fortitude, to endure another 3 hours so I’ll wait until someone writes a recap.

Obama’s poker tells – So we can’t play online poker here in the States but we can use badly thought out poker metaphors when writing an op/ed about the Presidential election.

WSOPE 2012: Brandon Cantu Speaks his Mind – PokerNews has perhaps the single greatest stream-of-consciousness, whiny interview since the last time someone stuck a camera in Hellmuth’s face. God bless you Brandon Cantu, never change.

Score one for the good guys. Andy Bloch was atop a list of the best poker players to have not won a WSOP bracelet but he took care of that Saturday night. Bloch had 27 WSOP cashes in his career including a famous runner up finish to Chip Reese in the 2006 $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event. This time he beat Barry Greenstein heads up for the $1,500 Seven Card Stud bracelet and will never have to hear people ask when he was going to win one.

It looks like Michael Binger and Shawn Buchanan are now on the clock as ESPN’s Andrew Feldman points out both have 20+ WSOP cashes and over $2,000,000 in career earnings.

Link Dump

Tournament Tips with Will Reynolds – PokerNews caught up with Will Reynolds for some poker strategy tips. “Tighten up early, lossen up late” is his advice. In other news, water is wet and the sky is blue.

ESPN Poker is The Nuts – Andrew Feldman has their latest poker rankings based on a voting panel of 10. Steve O’Dwyer finally makes an appearance after running over the Euro events. But somehow Phil Ivey is still sitting in 2nd.

BLUFF WSOP Photo Blog – Everybody likes pretty picture and shiny things. Heather Borowinski always does great work and this post has just a few of her pics, worth tracking down the others.

The WSOP Daily Shuffle – Nolan Dalla has been documenting the game longer than most others. Easy morning he posts an article about what happened and what is going to happen.

Ty Stewart Responds on QuadJacks – After the long weekend of problems at the Rio, WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart sat down with QuadJacks to discuss the issues.